Cooking a turkey is one of the most overrated efforts in America. Years ago, housewives with too much time on their hands began doing weird stuff like sewing it together. It doesn’t need that.
There is only one precaution. Remember to check it inside for those little bags of parts. God only knows what they are-liver and hearts and gross stuff. Some people know how to use them but I don’t. You don’t have to know what to do with them, just remember to take them out or you will cut into the turkey at the dinner table to find it and be publicly humiliated - probably in front of your mother-in-law.
The whole process starts at the store when you have to pick one out. I’ve never done any fancy calculations about weight. I always just bought one the same size as all the others. You’re feeding an average size crowd so buy an average turkey. Don’t get one too small or you won’t have enough juice for gravy. Don’t get one too big, either--you don’t have an oven that big and surely you have enough sense not to invite that many people.
Bring it home and wash it. This is not only for cleanliness. You want to be sure to check for all those little bags. Most important, however, is that during the washing of the turkey you get to know it. This is your honored guest for the big meal. His name is probably Tom. Call him by name. I never figured out why people would cook a male turkey named Tom when it is the big breasts they want. Maybe the toms are larger. I always call mine Tom no matter what sex it is.
Introduce Tom to your children. Have him wave his wing. Show the kids how he runs on his drumsticks. Enjoy yourself . This is the last quality time you will have with the children this whole day. This is the last smile they will see on your face. Explain to them that you are going away on a trip and another mother who just looks like you will be here for a day or so. She may say and do some shocking things and her face will get very red while she screams at everyone. Explain that you will be home after she leaves, probably on Saturday.
Here is my recipe for cooking turkey:
Read on the bag how long to cook it and what temperature to use. Stuff an onion and a celery stick up his butt and throw him in the pan. I’m not sure the onion and celery help the turkey but it makes the room smell nice. Do NOT cover the pan. Rub a little margarine on the top. Salt and pepper. Make a mental note of the time. Put it in the oven. Go away and forget about it. Turkeys have been doing this for years. They know what to do.
About Me
- Jane
- I'm pretty much a typist for the Holy Spirit. I try to put those things into words in a blog called Jane's Journey. I have another blog for recipes called My Life in Food. Also Really Cool Stuff features Labyrinths and other things like how to fry an egg on the sidewalk.(first step: don't do it on the sidewalk, use a skillet) Come along with me as I careen through life.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
How to Stay Married
Yesterday Beaven and I celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary by spending most of the day apart. Not that this is our secret but, in a way, it is. Anyone who has lasted 36 years together considers themselves war veterans of a sort. And there’s a certain amount of comfort and security in knowing you’ve past the test, many tests, in fact, and can weather whatever else comes your way. By this time you don’t really have stars in your eyes anymore. You probably couldn’t see them without your bifocals anyway.
Our marriage started off in a kind of weird way. Somehow at the wedding reception the keys to the trunk of his car got separated from the ignition key. He had the ignition key, could start the car and drive off for our honeymoon. But he gave the key to the trunk to someone to load our suitcases and couldn’t find that person. Everyone was waving us off for our grand exit, throw the damned bouquet, catch our plane in time, yada, yada. I was a little suspicious that they really just wanted to get back to their champagne. I didn’t care, though; I was married and it was a magical evening. It didn’t take 30 seconds for the magic to wear off. As we found ourselves alone for the first time in our 2-hour old marriage, Beaven was in a panic. He could get us to the airport but he couldn’t get into the trunk to get our bags. He was thinking about a week in Mexico City without luggage. Before we got even a block away from the reception he was using words I had never heard him use before. I began wondering who this horrid man was that I had just married.
It all worked out and we had a great honeymoon, came home, went back to night classes for a couple of years and had two children. For the next 20 years or so we put our marriage into a kind of suspended animation that comes with raising kids. So when the youngest went off to college we looked at each other and wondered who was this person we were married to. We went into counseling. The next thing I knew we had separated. This startled everyone, including us. But it all worked out eventually. And here we are married for 36 years and having the life we envisioned back when we first started.
Along the way we’ve had a lot of examples of the ways we are different from each other. We took a cruise once that offered gambling. I won forty dollars on the slot machine and told him to go get me one of those buckets.
“A bucket? What for?”
“So we can take it up to our room and take it home.”
“Take it home? You’re supposed to put it back in the machine and see how much more you can win.”
We stood there for the longest time and looked at each other with new eyes and wondered who this person was and how did we get married to somebody like that.
But I watched him take care of his Daddy during the last years of his life. I’ve seen him with his grandchildren and wondered anew where this man came from. I’ve watched him move furniture and marveled at his strength at age 65.
Now I’m going to tell you our secret. Building things. I remember distinctly when we both realized we wanted to be married to each other. We were in the swimming pool at the Riveria apartments on Live Oak in East Dallas. The rest of our friends were in the pool drinking Salty Dogs and talking while Beaven and I were in our own little world discussing swimming pools. I think it was me who said, “Let’s build a pool together.” Once we agreed on this idea we realized we’d have to have a house and a marriage. The rest fell into place. But the die had been cast: marriage was thus defined in our partnership as a building project. Something we would work on together.
Since that day at the Riveria apartments we have indeed built a swimming pool together as well as a couple of houses and more re-modeling projects than I can count. Sometimes “building” was no more than hiring a contractor and agreeing on the design but more often than not it was picking up a hammer and shovel and doing it ourselves. At our house right now we’ve just finished a playhouse for the grandkids and are about to install our fourth toilet in what has now become a “compound” of a variety of buildings out here in the country.
Every couple I talk to has their own criteria for what builds a good partnership. For some the test is wallpapering. For some, it’s canoeing together. But I think the greatest exercise a couple can do to keep their marriage sound is pull electrical cables. We have pulled miles and miles of cables in our 36 years. He gets at one end in the attic and I’m usually in the house at the other end of where the cable is supposed to end up, watching for it through a hole about 2 inches wide as he tries to feed it through ten feet of twists and turns with me yelling to him to “Push. No, pull it up a bit. No, push, push, push!” Yesterday’s project was our greatest feat and, to be frank, it would have stopped most couples cold.
We had to feed 70 feet of heavy, thick underground electrical cable through a 50 foot pipe then through a hole under a concrete pad for about 18 inches. This was mostly underwater, too, since it rained just enough to fill the hole with water. Then we had to turn the cable up and back into a hole 4 inches up through another concrete pad and into our barn. At times Beaven was in a kind of foxhole in the ground with his arm extended into a hole under the concrete, through the water and upwards to where the water line stopped and he met the air. We stopped at one point to measure his arm and it lacked about a half an inch to match the distance we needed to cover. It was so tantalizingly close that we knew if we just kept at it we would succeed. We worked on this for about 2 days, taking periodic breaks and wondering if it would all be worth it. The second day our muscles were so sore we could barely move. The foxhole had become a mudhole by then and Beaven’s hands were covered with scratches. I found one of my ears had mud caked on it. In the end, when it finally did work, we secured the wire then went inside to rest. This time when we looked at each other we knew exactly who we were looking at. I looked over at my partner and said, “That was really fun, wasn’t it?” And he agreed with me. It really was.
Our marriage started off in a kind of weird way. Somehow at the wedding reception the keys to the trunk of his car got separated from the ignition key. He had the ignition key, could start the car and drive off for our honeymoon. But he gave the key to the trunk to someone to load our suitcases and couldn’t find that person. Everyone was waving us off for our grand exit, throw the damned bouquet, catch our plane in time, yada, yada. I was a little suspicious that they really just wanted to get back to their champagne. I didn’t care, though; I was married and it was a magical evening. It didn’t take 30 seconds for the magic to wear off. As we found ourselves alone for the first time in our 2-hour old marriage, Beaven was in a panic. He could get us to the airport but he couldn’t get into the trunk to get our bags. He was thinking about a week in Mexico City without luggage. Before we got even a block away from the reception he was using words I had never heard him use before. I began wondering who this horrid man was that I had just married.
It all worked out and we had a great honeymoon, came home, went back to night classes for a couple of years and had two children. For the next 20 years or so we put our marriage into a kind of suspended animation that comes with raising kids. So when the youngest went off to college we looked at each other and wondered who was this person we were married to. We went into counseling. The next thing I knew we had separated. This startled everyone, including us. But it all worked out eventually. And here we are married for 36 years and having the life we envisioned back when we first started.
Along the way we’ve had a lot of examples of the ways we are different from each other. We took a cruise once that offered gambling. I won forty dollars on the slot machine and told him to go get me one of those buckets.
“A bucket? What for?”
“So we can take it up to our room and take it home.”
“Take it home? You’re supposed to put it back in the machine and see how much more you can win.”
We stood there for the longest time and looked at each other with new eyes and wondered who this person was and how did we get married to somebody like that.
But I watched him take care of his Daddy during the last years of his life. I’ve seen him with his grandchildren and wondered anew where this man came from. I’ve watched him move furniture and marveled at his strength at age 65.
Now I’m going to tell you our secret. Building things. I remember distinctly when we both realized we wanted to be married to each other. We were in the swimming pool at the Riveria apartments on Live Oak in East Dallas. The rest of our friends were in the pool drinking Salty Dogs and talking while Beaven and I were in our own little world discussing swimming pools. I think it was me who said, “Let’s build a pool together.” Once we agreed on this idea we realized we’d have to have a house and a marriage. The rest fell into place. But the die had been cast: marriage was thus defined in our partnership as a building project. Something we would work on together.
Since that day at the Riveria apartments we have indeed built a swimming pool together as well as a couple of houses and more re-modeling projects than I can count. Sometimes “building” was no more than hiring a contractor and agreeing on the design but more often than not it was picking up a hammer and shovel and doing it ourselves. At our house right now we’ve just finished a playhouse for the grandkids and are about to install our fourth toilet in what has now become a “compound” of a variety of buildings out here in the country.
Every couple I talk to has their own criteria for what builds a good partnership. For some the test is wallpapering. For some, it’s canoeing together. But I think the greatest exercise a couple can do to keep their marriage sound is pull electrical cables. We have pulled miles and miles of cables in our 36 years. He gets at one end in the attic and I’m usually in the house at the other end of where the cable is supposed to end up, watching for it through a hole about 2 inches wide as he tries to feed it through ten feet of twists and turns with me yelling to him to “Push. No, pull it up a bit. No, push, push, push!” Yesterday’s project was our greatest feat and, to be frank, it would have stopped most couples cold.
We had to feed 70 feet of heavy, thick underground electrical cable through a 50 foot pipe then through a hole under a concrete pad for about 18 inches. This was mostly underwater, too, since it rained just enough to fill the hole with water. Then we had to turn the cable up and back into a hole 4 inches up through another concrete pad and into our barn. At times Beaven was in a kind of foxhole in the ground with his arm extended into a hole under the concrete, through the water and upwards to where the water line stopped and he met the air. We stopped at one point to measure his arm and it lacked about a half an inch to match the distance we needed to cover. It was so tantalizingly close that we knew if we just kept at it we would succeed. We worked on this for about 2 days, taking periodic breaks and wondering if it would all be worth it. The second day our muscles were so sore we could barely move. The foxhole had become a mudhole by then and Beaven’s hands were covered with scratches. I found one of my ears had mud caked on it. In the end, when it finally did work, we secured the wire then went inside to rest. This time when we looked at each other we knew exactly who we were looking at. I looked over at my partner and said, “That was really fun, wasn’t it?” And he agreed with me. It really was.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Earning the Right to Sing the Song
I have always loved listening to a really good song sung with enthusiasm. There is a certain drama to music; it can stir feelings inside you that you had previously underestimated. And one of the most dramatic songs I can think of is the one they call the national anthem of the civil rights movement, “Lift Every Voice and Sing”. For sheer drama it’s the best. I’m old enough to have watched the civil rights movement as it passed by me in the newspaper headlines or on TV. But I was a mere observer. I have to admit that in the 50’s and 60’s I was preoccupied with growing up and going to school. As much as I love “Lift Every Voice and Sing” I never earned the right to sing the song. And, in fact, it is a difficult song to sing. It changes tempo near the end and always throws me for a loop. But for sheer listening pleasure, nothing can beat it. The Garland church organist sometimes sneaks it in on the Sunday before Martin Luther King Day. So few notice it or remark on it that I sometimes feel like Margaret has given me a private concert that day. It’s simply one of the most stirring songs around.
So the moment I had been waiting for came the other day watching Rosa Parks’ funeral. I knew there would be no other time that I would ever be able to hear this song sung quite like I could hear it from the original leaders of the civil rights movement, probably a thousand voices joined in the song they have sung probably a thousand times gathered together in one place-the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington DC. And it was a magnificent sound. The words bear a second look, though, especially when thinking of the death of one of the great women of the movement.
Lift every voice and sing till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies;
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
I never earned the right to sing the song. But the people who did were at that funeral singing it with feeling. I noticed most of the members of the congregation were singing it from memory and with great enthusiasm. The passing of Rosa Parks was not so much a declaration of victory over the enemy of bigotry as much as it was a celebration of the advances that have been made by sacrificial people like her-- people of dignity and grace. Only one face was strewn with tears, the rest were composed. Gray was the dominant hair color. These warriors had learned to compose themselves 50 years ago.
When Beaven and I bought our first house in Oak Cliff a black couple moved in next door. Beaven’s initial fears that it would ruin the neighborhood were met with the fact that the husband was a lawyer who graduated from Harvard. And the wife ended up as one of my best friends. Their son, Marc, was born the same week as Emily. And they played together in our back yard until the year the Rangers moved away. The last I heard from them was when she was elected to the Dallas school board. It was Carla Ranger who educated me on what it was like to be black in the 50’s and 60’s. She earned the right to sing the song.
She told a story of going to a sit-in. She was partnered with a black man and they went with a white couple to a restaurant and all four quietly sat down together at a table. That’s all they did—sit down. The owner came to their table and held a gun to the black man’s head and told them he would shoot them if they didn’t leave. As hard as it is to believe I know this happened because Carla had no reason to lie to me. She told stories of her husband Marcus being taunted and abused by the white boys in Fort Worth where he grew up. This was real and it happened to friends of mine. She was part of the movement Rosa Parks helped start. And I wonder if the youth of today, both black and white, fifty years after 1955 have any realization of the sacrifices made to bring us all to where we are today.
Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet, with a steady beat, have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered;
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
I once attended a special service of Thanksgiving at Perkins School of Theology on the SMU campus. It was to commemorate the graduation forty years ago of its first black student, the now-famous Rev Cecil Williams, pastor of Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. I had heard of him and the famous choir from his church. To tell the truth I went more to hear the choir than to honor his graduation. He had a few interesting stories to tell about being the first black student and the choir was dependably fantastic.
At the end of the service I found myself holding the hand of the black lady next to me as we stood and sang “We Shall Overcome.” It gave me the strangest feeling in my gut—not to hold this woman’s hand or to sing the song—but to realize this was the first time in my life I had actually sung the famous song myself. Where had I been all these years? Why had I never been in a place or situation where this song was sung?
Thou who hast by Thy might led us into the light;
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God where we met Thee;
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand may we forever stand,
I never earned the right to claim a place in the choir to sing either of these marvelous songs. I was only an observer. But it made me wonder what cause is out there now that I should be joining. What is important enough for me to risk? Victory is sweet but it is sweetest to those who risked something to gain it.
And here is the question I leave you with today. What needs to be changed in our world today that you would risk something for? I’m not sure I want to die without ever having risked something to make a change in our world. It is the risk that makes the gift precious.
So the moment I had been waiting for came the other day watching Rosa Parks’ funeral. I knew there would be no other time that I would ever be able to hear this song sung quite like I could hear it from the original leaders of the civil rights movement, probably a thousand voices joined in the song they have sung probably a thousand times gathered together in one place-the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington DC. And it was a magnificent sound. The words bear a second look, though, especially when thinking of the death of one of the great women of the movement.
Lift every voice and sing till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies;
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on, till victory is won.
I never earned the right to sing the song. But the people who did were at that funeral singing it with feeling. I noticed most of the members of the congregation were singing it from memory and with great enthusiasm. The passing of Rosa Parks was not so much a declaration of victory over the enemy of bigotry as much as it was a celebration of the advances that have been made by sacrificial people like her-- people of dignity and grace. Only one face was strewn with tears, the rest were composed. Gray was the dominant hair color. These warriors had learned to compose themselves 50 years ago.
When Beaven and I bought our first house in Oak Cliff a black couple moved in next door. Beaven’s initial fears that it would ruin the neighborhood were met with the fact that the husband was a lawyer who graduated from Harvard. And the wife ended up as one of my best friends. Their son, Marc, was born the same week as Emily. And they played together in our back yard until the year the Rangers moved away. The last I heard from them was when she was elected to the Dallas school board. It was Carla Ranger who educated me on what it was like to be black in the 50’s and 60’s. She earned the right to sing the song.
She told a story of going to a sit-in. She was partnered with a black man and they went with a white couple to a restaurant and all four quietly sat down together at a table. That’s all they did—sit down. The owner came to their table and held a gun to the black man’s head and told them he would shoot them if they didn’t leave. As hard as it is to believe I know this happened because Carla had no reason to lie to me. She told stories of her husband Marcus being taunted and abused by the white boys in Fort Worth where he grew up. This was real and it happened to friends of mine. She was part of the movement Rosa Parks helped start. And I wonder if the youth of today, both black and white, fifty years after 1955 have any realization of the sacrifices made to bring us all to where we are today.
Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet, with a steady beat, have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered;
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
I once attended a special service of Thanksgiving at Perkins School of Theology on the SMU campus. It was to commemorate the graduation forty years ago of its first black student, the now-famous Rev Cecil Williams, pastor of Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. I had heard of him and the famous choir from his church. To tell the truth I went more to hear the choir than to honor his graduation. He had a few interesting stories to tell about being the first black student and the choir was dependably fantastic.
At the end of the service I found myself holding the hand of the black lady next to me as we stood and sang “We Shall Overcome.” It gave me the strangest feeling in my gut—not to hold this woman’s hand or to sing the song—but to realize this was the first time in my life I had actually sung the famous song myself. Where had I been all these years? Why had I never been in a place or situation where this song was sung?
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou hast brought us thus far on the way;Thou who hast by Thy might led us into the light;
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God where we met Thee;
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.
I never earned the right to claim a place in the choir to sing either of these marvelous songs. I was only an observer. But it made me wonder what cause is out there now that I should be joining. What is important enough for me to risk? Victory is sweet but it is sweetest to those who risked something to gain it.
A friend I made while working on the Gulf Coast during the Katrina recovery ended up in seminary. Upon ordination her first church call was to a church in Ferguson, Missouri and her first day at work was the week Michael Brown was killed. She stepped right into the riots and hasn't looked back. I know she's been in more demonstrations for racial justice than she can count, knows the recipe for the antidote to tear gas and has been arrested at least once or twice. And I've decided I don't really trust a preacher who hasn't been arrested at least once. Erin Counihan has earned the right to sing the song.
And here is the question I leave you with today. What needs to be changed in our world today that you would risk something for? I’m not sure I want to die without ever having risked something to make a change in our world. It is the risk that makes the gift precious.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Convertibles
I always wanted a convertible--a red Mustang convertible. The only person I know who has never admitted an urge for a convertible is Beaven and that doesn’t really count because he’s terminally practical. But the urge got really strong during a small mid-life crisis I had a few years ago. Actually I’ve had more than one of these crises spaced throughout my life until I got medicated. But this time the dream wouldn’t go away.
My best friend in high school had a white Pontiac convertible and we had a blast in that car. We would take it to the top of the Greenbriar Lane a block from my house. She would slip the car into neutral and we would sit up on the seat back while she steered with her feet then coast all the way down the hill. It was a 2-block trip and just the right speed-not too fast or too slow. We pretended we were beauty queens in a parade and waved at people we passed. It’s amazing we didn’t get arrested or killed.
A few years ago it was time to get me a new car and you can imagine what happened. I wanted the convertible. For the first time in our lives, we could get pretty much whatever car we wanted. The kids were grown and gone. We had a little more money available. I knew exactly what I wanted. How much easier could it get? Men always want a pickup. I know very few men who haven’t owned at least one pickup in their lives. It seems to be a rite of passage for them. Men get their pickup, shouldn’t I get my convertible?
I’m not sure men and women should shop together. The one time I bought a car by myself, it took 15 minutes. With Beaven, it takes about 15 months. First, he has to pore over about 50 consumer magazines. Then talk to the guys at work about their experiences. Comparison shop on the Internet a week or so. Go to the auto shows. Check with the credit union. Then discuss it with the guys at work some more. By the time we get to the car dealer, I’m usually tired of the whole ordeal. All I care about in shopping for a car is its color and I always want red.
This time once we got to the dealer Beaven took me right to the biggest and heaviest sedan they sold. It was a grandmother car. Drab, spacious, sensible. Beaven always wants sensible. The only problem was I didn’t want a sensible car. In the throes of a mid-life crisis you don’t want anything sensible. He gave me over ten reasons why I didn’t need a convertible. His ten reasons made sense but didn’t change my mind.
“I just need to get this out of my system,” I said. That’s when he hit upon the most inventive idea I think he’s ever had. He suggested I rent a convertible for a week and see how I felt then. So, I did exactly that. I rented a red Mustang convertible for a week.
My whole personality changed when I was driving that car. I drove faster. I ran yellow lights, something I never did in my sturdy little compact. “Get out of my way. Can’t you see I’m driving a hot car?” People looked differently at me when I was behind its wheel. I swear men would smile at me in that car. And I felt differently about myself. I had more confidence. I felt prettier. I WAS prettier.
This was a little hard to do, since I was sweating like a pig. It was June and the temperature was already in the hundreds. Not only did the sun beat down on me with vengeance; the air-conditioning flowed uselessly into the sky above me. I turned all the vents directly toward me and hovered close during stoplights but I was constantly soaked with perspiration. Yes, I wore sunglasses; the glare was blinding. My hair had that windblown look. It was also twice as dirty from the road pollution. And friends with long hair were blinded by their own hair anytime I drove over 10 miles an hour. We generally drove in silence because we couldn’t hear each other over the road din. After getting the radio loud enough to hear while driving, we would get blasted anytime the car stopped. Once, it started raining while I was on the freeway. I had to find an exit and put the top up. Every stop at the grocery store or post office required putting the top up. God, I loved driving that car!
Beaven thought I would get it out of my system after the week. I didn’t. But I knew better than to fight it. We bought the Grannycar- the sensible sedan with all the options he suggested. But there were two options that I insisted on. Only two: “It has to be red. And I want a sun roof.” Women my age have the capacity for a mysterious festival of emotions that leave their men in a state of constant fear. When we found out a sun roof wasn’t an option on that model Beaven took it to a custom shop to have one made for my car. After all that effort I felt like I needed to accept the Grannywagon.
I still pined for the convertible. But I could open the sunroof for a while and that would usually settle me down. After the wind blew a few papers out onto the freeway and got a good cover of dust on everything and the sun beat in my eyes, I was usually ready to close the roof. The urged passed. In the meantime my grandkids loved it.
My best friend in high school had a white Pontiac convertible and we had a blast in that car. We would take it to the top of the Greenbriar Lane a block from my house. She would slip the car into neutral and we would sit up on the seat back while she steered with her feet then coast all the way down the hill. It was a 2-block trip and just the right speed-not too fast or too slow. We pretended we were beauty queens in a parade and waved at people we passed. It’s amazing we didn’t get arrested or killed.
A few years ago it was time to get me a new car and you can imagine what happened. I wanted the convertible. For the first time in our lives, we could get pretty much whatever car we wanted. The kids were grown and gone. We had a little more money available. I knew exactly what I wanted. How much easier could it get? Men always want a pickup. I know very few men who haven’t owned at least one pickup in their lives. It seems to be a rite of passage for them. Men get their pickup, shouldn’t I get my convertible?
I’m not sure men and women should shop together. The one time I bought a car by myself, it took 15 minutes. With Beaven, it takes about 15 months. First, he has to pore over about 50 consumer magazines. Then talk to the guys at work about their experiences. Comparison shop on the Internet a week or so. Go to the auto shows. Check with the credit union. Then discuss it with the guys at work some more. By the time we get to the car dealer, I’m usually tired of the whole ordeal. All I care about in shopping for a car is its color and I always want red.
This time once we got to the dealer Beaven took me right to the biggest and heaviest sedan they sold. It was a grandmother car. Drab, spacious, sensible. Beaven always wants sensible. The only problem was I didn’t want a sensible car. In the throes of a mid-life crisis you don’t want anything sensible. He gave me over ten reasons why I didn’t need a convertible. His ten reasons made sense but didn’t change my mind.
“I just need to get this out of my system,” I said. That’s when he hit upon the most inventive idea I think he’s ever had. He suggested I rent a convertible for a week and see how I felt then. So, I did exactly that. I rented a red Mustang convertible for a week.
My whole personality changed when I was driving that car. I drove faster. I ran yellow lights, something I never did in my sturdy little compact. “Get out of my way. Can’t you see I’m driving a hot car?” People looked differently at me when I was behind its wheel. I swear men would smile at me in that car. And I felt differently about myself. I had more confidence. I felt prettier. I WAS prettier.
This was a little hard to do, since I was sweating like a pig. It was June and the temperature was already in the hundreds. Not only did the sun beat down on me with vengeance; the air-conditioning flowed uselessly into the sky above me. I turned all the vents directly toward me and hovered close during stoplights but I was constantly soaked with perspiration. Yes, I wore sunglasses; the glare was blinding. My hair had that windblown look. It was also twice as dirty from the road pollution. And friends with long hair were blinded by their own hair anytime I drove over 10 miles an hour. We generally drove in silence because we couldn’t hear each other over the road din. After getting the radio loud enough to hear while driving, we would get blasted anytime the car stopped. Once, it started raining while I was on the freeway. I had to find an exit and put the top up. Every stop at the grocery store or post office required putting the top up. God, I loved driving that car!
Beaven thought I would get it out of my system after the week. I didn’t. But I knew better than to fight it. We bought the Grannycar- the sensible sedan with all the options he suggested. But there were two options that I insisted on. Only two: “It has to be red. And I want a sun roof.” Women my age have the capacity for a mysterious festival of emotions that leave their men in a state of constant fear. When we found out a sun roof wasn’t an option on that model Beaven took it to a custom shop to have one made for my car. After all that effort I felt like I needed to accept the Grannywagon.
I still pined for the convertible. But I could open the sunroof for a while and that would usually settle me down. After the wind blew a few papers out onto the freeway and got a good cover of dust on everything and the sun beat in my eyes, I was usually ready to close the roof. The urged passed. In the meantime my grandkids loved it.
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